House Bill 5255 (H-2) would amend the Revised
School Code to establish a
standard of willfulness or gross negligence for a person to be subject to discipline
for using corporal punishment or physical force. Currently, a person who violates
the Code's prohibition against corporal punishment, or who uses physical force
upon a pupil that is not authorized under the Code, may be appropriately
disciplined by his or her school board or public school academy. Under the bill,
the person would have to have acted willfully or through gross negligence.
("Corporal punishment" means the deliberate infliction of physical pain by hitting,
paddling, spanking, slapping, or any other physical force used as a means of
discipline.)

Under the Code, a person employed by or engaged as a
volunteer or contractor by
a local or intermediate school board or public school academy who exercises
necessary reasonable physical force upon a pupil, or upon another person of
school age in a school-related setting, is not liable in a civil action for damages
arising from the use of that physical force. The bill also specifies that the person
would be presumed not to have violated the Code's prohibition against corporal
punishment by the use of that physical force. The bill states that these provisions
would not alter or limit a person's immunity from liability under the governmental
immunity law.

House Bill 5256 would amend the Michigan Penal
Code to state that the Code's
penalties for assault and battery would not apply to an individual using necessary
reasonable physical force against pupils in compliance with Section 1312 of the
Revised School Code.

Section 1312 allows a person employed by or engaged as a
volunteer or
contractor by a local or intermediate school board or public school academy to use
reasonable physical force upon a pupil as necessary to maintain order and control
in a school or school-related setting in order to provide an environment conducive
to safety and learning. The person may use physical force upon a pupil as
necessary to restrain or remove a pupil whose behavior is interfering with school
functions, for self-defense or the defense of another, to prevent a pupil from
inflicting harm on himself or herself, to quell a disturbance that threatens physical
injury, to obtain possession of a weapon or other dangerous object from a pupil,
or to protect property.

The local fiscal impact is indeterminate. There are no available
data that would
identify whether this bill would lead to more or fewer disciplinary hearings before
school boards. If this bill led to fewer overall hearings relating to disciplining
teachers who had used "unreasonable" force to quell disturbances, then it is
possible that the costs associated with holding these hearings would fall.

If, on the other hand, local school boards adopted very strict
"don't touch" polices
as a result of this bill, then boards could be faced with more disciplinary hearings.
In this scenario, teachers could quell disturbances in violation of local school board
policies, but not in violation of State law. This could lead to more local board
hearings, and higher associated costs.

House Bill 5256

The bill would have an indeterminate fiscal impact on local
government.

There are no statewide data available to indicate how many
offenders are
convicted of simple assault, or how many were applying reasonable physical force
in compliance with Section 1312 of the revised school code. To the extent that
local government incurs the costs and/or receives the fine revenue from these
misdemeanor offenses, changes to the assault and battery statute would have a
fiscal impact on local units.